Homeless deserve more than rhetoric

Updated 2:54 pm, Saturday, November 30, 2013

Many homeless people like this man prefer the outdoors to shelters, but they still need our help.

Many homeless people like this man prefer the outdoors to shelters, but they still need our help.

Photo: Johnny Hanson, Staff

Homeless deserve more than rhetoric

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More than a month has passed since I saw the police cars' blue lights blinking. The traffic had come to a crawl, and I knew something bad had happened. The intersection was quickly filling with onlookers. Yellow police tape cordoned off the bus stop's waiting booth where inside, a white blanket covered a body.

I immediately knew that Ms. Cleo was under the nondescript blanket.

Ms. Cleo was a homeless woman who sat day in and day out at a corner that I drove by to and from work. She had been there for years, sitting on a small chair. I don't know how old Ms. Cleo was; the stress and pain of the streets seems to make people look older than they really are. She wasn't a large woman, maybe 5 foot, 5 or 6 inches, and she walked with a slow shuffle. Ms. Cleo was always there with a smile and a wave even on those days when I didn't stop the car to roll down my window to give her some spare change or my sack lunch.

I have no idea how many thousands of cars passed by Ms. Cleo each week or how many people passed her by over the years. But that day, Ms. Cleo lay slumped over on the bus stop seat under an everyday blanket.

The homeless are everywhere - they're not just an urban phenomenon. In Houston, we see the homeless on our street corners with cardboard signs - "Homeless, Hungry, Please Help, God Bless." We see them in our parks, sometimes sleeping on a bench with a shopping cart holding their life's possessions; we see homeless people in the library, riding Metro trains and buses, at night on the sidewalk curled up under a blanket, or standing in a food line outside of a church hall. For the most part, we see them but we also avoid making eye contact or saying hello.

Our government leaders ask how many homeless people are there, but do the numbers really matter? Has it made a difference knowing a number? The National Alliance to End Homelessness reports that in the nationwide January "point-in-time count," there were 633,782 homeless persons in the United States. But is this number even close to being exact?

Because there is no consensus around the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's definition of homelessness, I would say probably not. And this number is even more suspect in light of the U.S. Department of Education's October report that identified slightly more than 1.1 million homeless youth enrolled in public schools during the 2011-2012 academic year.

The homeless in our communities have complex problems with no easy, one-size-fits-all solution. The U.S. Conference of Mayors' 2012 Status Report on Hunger and Homelessness noted that 30 percent of homeless adults were severely mentally ill, 18 percent were physically disabled, 17 percent were employed, 16 percent were victims of domestic violence, 13 percent were veterans, and 4 percent were HIV-positive.

And sadly, as Ms. Cleo attests, 44 percent of the homeless, according to the National Coalition for the Homeless, are unsheltered; they will not be in a safe, secure, housing environment tonight.

Our national, state and local homeless policies are convoluted and disjointed, firmly built on a foundation that lacks compassion and understanding of the multi-dimensional, complex issues faced on a daily basis by homeless persons.

How often do we hear someone minimizing the issue of homelessness by claiming affected persons "choose" to live on the streets? Is it really "freedom of choice" when a comprehensive supportive system is simply not available? Or, how often have we heard someone say, don't give them any food or money, you're only encouraging them to beg? It is certainly easy to justify not doing anything when much needs to be done.

Houston Mayor Annise Parker is aggressively tackling homelessness among veterans. The city's Housing Houston's Heroes initiative is part of a nationwide partnership between public agencies and area nonprofit organizations. Initial reports are encouraging as homeless veterans move from the streets into safe, secure housing.

But much more must be done for all of those people whose homes are the streets, parks and underpasses. The time has come for the elected local, county, state and federal officials to work directly with the leaders of nonprofit and public agencies to create an aggressive homeless prevention program, one that provides safe and secure living spaces. A place that is easily accessible and affordable, staffed by qualified professionals who can provide critical behavioral health care case-management services.

A comprehensive shelter program must create pathways from the insecurity of the streets to the safety of a permanent home. Just as important is to establish programs that ensure unaccompanied youth on the street have a place to spend the night.

Let me pose a simple question: Would you be fine and supportive if your son or daughter, brother or sister, mother or father, aunt or uncle said they were going to live on the streets?

Ms. Cleo was someone's daughter, granddaughter, maybe a niece and a sister. She deserved better.